


time stops, i wish that i could rewind

by foolanyfriend



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ensemble Cast, Established Relationship, F/M, Hospital Setting, Memory Loss, Reuniting, for the first couple of chapters anyways, kind of?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3956827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolanyfriend/pseuds/foolanyfriend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's 2015, Bellamy," Lincoln states, biting the bullet.</p>
<p>"No, it's not," Bellamy volleys back, abruptly feeling slightly hysterical.</p>
<p>
  <i>on indefinite hiatus!!</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. nothing lasts forever, nothing stays the same

**Author's Note:**

> I've seen several amnesia!aus dotted around, but never one with Bellamy, so I hope you enjoy! I'm definitely enjoying writing it :) This is my first work in this fandom and is also unbetaed, so apologies for any mistakes and/or ooc moments.
> 
> Fic title comes from "Beside You" by 5 Seconds of Summer, chapter title is from "Wherever You Are" by the same.

"Detective Blake? Bellamy, can you hear me?"

"Bell? Bellamy?"

"If you can hear me, Detective, I'd like you to squeeze my hand, please. This is the trauma ward of Mount Weather Memorial Hospital, you've been in an accident."

The world flashes across his vision, washed-out walls replaced with faces; Octavia; a dark-haired man with coal-black eyes; blurs of green and blue as nurses and doctors bustle around. Bellamy can't remember why he's in the hospital, can't remember the journey in the ambulance, and the transition from the heaving hospital lobby to a quieter, less populated ward seems to be over in the blink of an eye.

His vision is spotty, dark spots glancing past and his eyelids continuously drooping shut, and his head feels like herds of elephants are trampling across his brain.

He's woozy, and suddenly it seems much more important to close his eyes and sleep than to wonder why exactly he's here, what chain of events has lead to Octavia crying in his peripheral vision, paler than he can ever remember her being and only remaining standing with the support of a blonde girl slightly shorter than her.

The room fuzzes grey at the edges then fades to black, and Bellamy doesn't hear the frantic scramble that follows and the rush to the operating theatre. Instead, he dreams.

His dreams are filled with snapshot images of his childhood with Octavia, his younger sister often trailing behind him. It's as though his brain is racing through a Rolodex of memories; Octavia's birth, when he was just turned seven, terrified by his mother's screams of pain and his fingers trembling as he raced to dial 911; chasing after a five year old Octavia and catching her in his arms, swinging her up to the sun and laughing as she tilts her face towards the heat; coming home late at fifteen, pushing his mom and Octavia away in futile attempts to hide the smell of beer and weed clinging to his clothes; eighteen and vowing to clean up his act when he gets the letter about the full-ride scholarship for classics, when he questions his mom about the application she just smiles and tells him it was his sister's idea; twenty-two and in shock, standing in a starkly-illuminated hospital corridor with the crushing realisation that he is all Octavia has left in the world.

The pace of the dreams seems to quicken and blur all at once; graduating college; realising that, as much as he loves it, History isn't a career path that will pay enough to support both him and a fifteen year old; enrolling in the Police Academy and meeting Nathan Miller, the first person apart from Octavia that he can really call a friend; Octavia enrolling in college and picking up as many extra shifts as he can so that she'll never have to give up on her dreams the way he did his.

*

Bellamy rouses occasionally, usually blearily opening his eyes long enough for Octavia to start forward and open her mouth before he fades back into sleep. Several times, he's woken up and realised he doesn't recognise the person sitting in the chair at his bedside - ranging from a older man with dark hair and a prominent nose staring at him with an air of fatherly concern to a pair of boys, both smaller than him and again, both dark-haired, staring down at him. The taller of the two, sporting a ridiculous pair of goggles acting as a sort of headband, gapes excitedly when he notices Bellamy's eyes open.

Most frequently though, Bellamy wakes to Octavia sitting beside him, often reading aloud to him from the mythology books he so favoured when it was him reading to her so long ago. The reassuringly familiar tales of Hades and Persephone, Orpheus and Eurydice and Echo and Narcissus act like a safety blanket in the jarring strangeness of the hospital.

Octavia's visits are pretty much all he has to look forward to, spots of brightness in an otherwise dreary day. She arrives at the beginning of visiting hours without fail, and often attempts to charm the nurses into letting her stay just a little bit longer after hours.

_"But I'm his only family. . ."_ She'll pout, batting her eyelashes in an expression he's been wary of for as long as he can remember. No one can resist her when she gets going, and often the nurse on duty will fold like a deck of cards, leaving Octavia to grin victoriously in their wake.

Bellamy's been confined to the hospital bed for what feels like an age, and there is a constant unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach. Everything around him seems slightly off, like someone has moved all the furniture in a room five centimetres to the left.

He notices it most when he's with Octavia - loath as he is to admit it, there's something different about her. Whatever it is, it floats frustratingly out of his reach. He first twigs that something is wrong when he asks her how sophomore year of college is going, if her classes are going well and if she's managed to finally pick a major in the time he's spent in the hospital.

The colour drains from Octavia's face for a millisecond before she smiles brightly and begins to chatter aimlessly about so-and-so in one of her classes, who apparently said something so _spectacularly ignorant_ that her professor was lost for words. Still, Bellamy is shaken, and although Octavia doesn't shut up for the rest of her visit, the gnawing thought that perhaps everything is not as it seems refuses to leave him.

On his fifth day in the hospital, the relentless monotony of sleeping, eating, and talking to Octavia is finally broken. He's been completely cut off from the outside world, with no television in his room, and needling Octavia for information proved futile - the badgering it took for her to agree to bring him some books and his own clothes was intense, and she demanded he tell her exactly what clothing and books he wanted, because as she put it, _"God knows what lives in that pigsty you call a bedroom, Bell."_

Bellamy's sitting propped up on about three pillows - the doctors still haven't let him get out of bed yet, and he swears that if they make him wait another day he might kill someone - and absent-mindedly leafing through a battered copy of _A Tale of Two Cities_ when he hears raised voices echoing through the corridor outside.

_"You said you would tell him! It's been nearly a week and he still doesn't have a clue what's going on, this must violate some kind of-"_

He cocks his head. The voice, distorted with anger, sounds like Octavia. Then another, unfamiliar voice joins in.

_"O, I know this is horrible, but Doctor Wallace is right. They need to be sure of the diagnosis before they tell Bellamy anything."_

Although he doesn't recognise it, the voice is reassuring, low for a woman but sill unmistakably female, and the mention of his own name has him straining to hear the conversation.

Finally, a third voice lends itself to the argument - this one he does know. It belongs to Doctor Cage Wallace, a pale man with soulless black eyes and a soft-spoken manner that never fails to make Bellamy's skin crawl. Wallace has been the only person he's seen more than Octavia, and the doctor's stubborn refusal to tell him anything beyond the bare minimum means that the man has grated on Bellamy's nerves since day one. There's nothing quite as infuriating as knowing something is wrong with you and knowing that everyone around you knows what it is whilst you remain helplessly in the dark.

_"As Miss Griffin said, Octavia, we wanted to be sure of ourselves before we moved any further. However, we have decided that now would be an opportune time to inform Mr Blake-"_

_"Finally!"_ Octavia exclaims emphatically, and Bellamy can only imagine the expressive hand gestures that follow.

He hears footsteps drawing nearer to his room and, in the interest of appearing unaffected by the conversation, hastily picks up his discarded book and does his best to seem engrossed in the storyline as Octavia throws open the door to the room followed closely by Doctor Wallace.

It doesn't escape Bellamy that the third voice is absent.

Octavia makes a beeline for his bedside as soon as she enters the room and launches herself into the chair beside him, reaching over and grasping his nearest hand so tightly in both of hers that he swears he can feel his bones grind together.

Wallace, meanwhile, flicks through the charts at the foot of Bellamy's bed before grabbing a clipboard and settling himself into the chair on Bellamy's other side.

He clears his throat.

"Now, Mr Blake, it has, I'm sure, been very difficult having been left in the dark for so long-"

"No shit," says Octavia fiercely, practically quivering with righteous fury, and Bellamy's heart seizes with a rush of affection for his fiery, ridiculously protective sister - a role reversal he is all too aware of and amused by.

"But," Wallace continues, sending a sour look in Octavia's direction, "it has been difficult to determine the best course of action when dealing with your. . . condition. It is something that sadly, none of us here at Mount Weather are entirely able to treat in the best fashion, and so we made the executive decision to call in a specialist-"

"You aren't fully equipped to deal with gunshot wounds?" Bellamy interrupts, fully aware that he's being rude but not caring enough to stop. In response to Octavia's questioning glance about his knowledge of his injury, he shrugs, winces at the pain it causes in his side, and says, "I am a cop, O, I have seen bullet wounds before. Besides, I asked the nurse that came in to change my bandages."

"I can assure you, Mr Blake, that we here at Mount Weather are perfectly capable of treating violent wounds in a safe and effective manner. It is the more delicate side effect of your accident that we find more difficult to treat."

Bellamy nods warily, turning towards Octavia. She's pale but blank-faced, sitting far too straight-backed in the uncomfortable hospital chair, and Bellamy feels the familiar unsettledness in the pit of his stomach again; Octavia knows what is going on, she has to.

"I'm sorry, but what is the 'more delicate' side effect?" He asks brusquely. "I've been stuck in here for days without any clue of what's happened to me and to be honest, I'd quite appreciate knowing."

Cage Wallace swallows before nodding. "Of course you're anxious. I'll send the specialist in now."

He stands abruptly and exits the room, shoes squeaking on the hospital floor, and Octavia sags with relief, her back bowing towards him.

When she catches Bellamy's eyes she smiles that increasingly familiar, unnervingly bright grin and giggles falsely. If it was anyone else he'd be demanding to know what was wrong, but he knows Octavia better than anyone else on the planet, even this strange and unfamiliar imitation of her, and he knows that the fastest way to get Octavia to clam up is to pester her for information.

"If he had said 'we here at Mount Weather' one more time, I swear to god . . ."

Bellamy smiles half-heartedly at Octavia's weak attempt at a joke. "If you'd been stuck here all week, I don't think Wallace would have made it past day three."

Octavia huffs out a half-laugh, and lifts herself out of the chair with a dancer's grace, crossing the room in a fluid movement and perusing the stack of books he has waiting to read. The scarf she has on billows out behind her, creating artificial wings streaming from her shoulder blades.

"You aren't nervous?" she asks, letting a little bit of vulnerability seep through her protective shell. Her hands flit around copies of the _Iliad_ , the _Odyssey_ and a massive encyclopaedia of Greek myths that he knows she detested carrying to the hospital, lifting the covers and running her fingers along their spines as though the books will be able to tell her what Bellamy can't.

He shrugs in response. "I don't know what I have to be nervous of," he replies.

He's lying, and praying Octavia doesn't notice.

Octavia hums in agreement and opens her mouth to say something, but is interrupted by a gentle knock on the door. It swings open and a tall guy with a shaved head and tattoos banding both his arms enters the room, his shirt-and-jeans combo completely at odds with what Bellamy was expecting, but the clipboard in his hand confirming that this must be the mysterious specialist.

Bellamy's heart sinks slightly, although he tries not to pay attention to it. A small part of him was hoping that the specialist would turn out to be the woman in the corridor whose voice he feels he should have recognised.

"Bellamy Blake?" the man questions, and when Bellamy nods in reply he gestures towards the chair that Octavia recently vacated. "Do you mind if I...?"

"Of course not," Octavia replies for him, and when he turns his head the smile on her face leaves him lost for words. It's a genuine smile from her this time, and if Bellamy is slightly rankled by the fact that this stranger has managed to get an expression out of her in a couple of words when he's been struggling for the past week and a half, well that's his business and he just has to hope it doesn't show on his face.

"I'm Lincoln," the man continues, settling into the chair with a lightness of movement that belies his height and muscular stature. "I assume Doctor Wallace told you what was going on?"

"No," Bellamy replies tersely, and frowns. "He didn't even tell me I was shot - I have experience-"

"You were a police officer, right?" Lincoln gently breaks in, and his hackles rise indignantly.

"Am. I _am_ a cop."

"My mistake," Lincoln placates, consulting his clipboard and making a few notes, ticking off a couple of boxes. Bellamy burns to ask what he's doing but grits his teeth and reluctantly refrains.

Lincoln turns to Octavia, who swooped in to occupy Wallace's abandoned chair while he and Bellamy introduced themselves. "Hey," he greets her, and Bellamy feels the familiar Big Brother Instincts make an appearance.

He aims for casual when he asks if they know each other, although judging by the thinly veiled irritation that Octavia is attempting to conceal, he fails miserably. She glares at him and her hands clench together in her lap, her nails digging crescent indents into her skin; he can practically hear her teeth gritting together.

Logically, Bellamy knows that Octavia is more than capable of looking after herself, and he _knows_ that the over-protective big brother shtick gets real old real fast, but the part of his brain that has spent almost every day of his life repeating the mantra of _'my sister, my responsibility'_ is stubborn and refuses to back off. A part of himself hates it, the urge to protect Octavia that colours his every action; but the fact remains that Octavia is all he has and vice versa, and if he lost her he didn't know what he would do. He knows it's the same for her.

"Your sister and I have spoken before," Lincoln says smoothly, interrupting the silent staring contest between the two Blakes, and (perhaps unwittingly) diffusing the tension. "She was the person I contacted when I needed your medical history, as your next of kin. But enough about us. What I was called in to discuss was you, Bellamy, specifically the aftermath of your accident. You were shot, yes?"

"I think that's been established."

Lincoln smiles ruefully. "I walked into that one, I'll admit it. You've had a physical exam done right?"

Bellamy nods, recalling being incredibly uncomfortable the day after he arrived at the hospital. . It was one of the only days that he had managed to stay awake for more than ten minutes at a time, and he had paid the price for his being alert. He had had his balance, reflexes and senses checked out, and had also undergone a CAT scan. The narrow interior of the gantry of the machine made his skin feel prickly, too small for his body and claustrophobic.

"Well, the reason you underwent those procedures is because after you were shot, you fell and hit your head pretty hard."

Wincing in memory, Bellamy gingerly reaches his right hand towards the back of his head, feeling the raised egg-shaped bump sitting prominently there. He's weirdly thankful that he got shot in his left side; if there's a good place to be shot surely the side of his body opposite to his dominant hand is a pretty okay one, all things considered. It could have been his heart, after all, and then where would he be? Certainly not having this conversation, that's for sure.

"Yeah," he says shortly. "Definitely felt the effects of that."

Lincoln cracks the tiniest of smiles, reshuffling his papers and again checking off different boxes and making some short notes. Bellamy shifts in the hospital bed in an attempt to get more comfortable, dislodging Octavia's feet from where she has them draped across his calves, and just smirks in response to her indignant squawk of dismay.

"I'm going to ask you some questions now, if that's okay with you?"

Bellamy nods once more, beginning to feel like a bobble-headed toy, and he watches as Lincoln contorts to the side and pulls a stopwatch out of his pocket.

"There's no pressure, they're just some basic questions. It's something called the G.O.A.T," he says, settling the watch on the arm of his chair and flicking the clipboard to another sheet of paper. "Octavia, if you would keep track of the length of time it takes for your brother to answer me?"

Octavia murmurs agreement and grabs the watch from Lincoln's outstretched hand, wobbling precariously and nearly toppling over on to Bellamy's legs. She recovers, thankfully, and Bellamy can see her do a tiny victorious fist-pump out of the corner of his eye.

Lincoln clears his throat, sounding amused under his veneer of professionalism. "Let's get started. Octavia, you ready?"

She nods, and Bellamy has the sudden, ridiculous thought that he feels exactly like some sort of science experiment, as if getting shot in some grimy back alleyway is his superhero origin story and Lincoln is about to break the news of his invincibility.

"Okay," says Lincoln. "What's your full name?"

"Bellamy Blake," he replies, slightly annoyed. If this whole G.O.A.T thing is just some test of his personal information, he doesn't see the need the need for it - didn't Lincoln say that Octavia had given the hospital access to all his records?

"No middle name?"

Bellamy shakes his head. "Nope."

"Okay, good. And your birthday?"

"The twentieth of December."

The questions continue along the same vein, some more complicated than others; and Lincoln's clipboard is practically covered in answers and the time it took for Bellamy to give them when he asks, "What were you doing right before your accident?"

Bellamy sits in silence for a good few minutes, his brow furrowed in an attempt to recall information. Eventually he gives up, admitting he can't remember anything from that day apart from the ambulance ride.

"That's perfectly normal, Bellamy," Lincoln says. "We're going to move back to more factual questions now, alright? Who's the President of the United States of America?"

Bellamy grins, his mood abruptly lifting. "Come on, that's an easy one. Barack Obama."

Lincoln smiles as well this time, a genuine one that stretches his cheeks and takes years off his face. "Great. Now can you tell me if this is his first or second term?"

Bellamy's confidence dips slightly, and the smile slides off his face. "It's his second, right? The election was only a few months ago..."

Octavia gasps sharply beside him, and when he turns to her, her eyes are huge with unshed tears. "I knew it!" she cries. "I knew it and none of you would listen! I'm his sister, I'm one of the only people he has, of course he's not going to _forget_ what year I'm in at college!"

"O?" Bellamy asks, and panic wells in the pit of his stomach like a poisonous thing, bitter and twisted. His sister shakes her head rapidly, and when he reaches out a reassuring hand towards her shoulder she bats it away quickly; as she stands up jerkily the screeching echo of her chair against the parquet of the hospital floor lingers in the abruptly disturbed air.

"Octavia," Lincoln says, and it's almost stern. Bellamy watches apprehensively, paranoid to do or say anything in case he exacerbates the situation. Lincoln stands up as well, but slowly, as if he's facing a skittish animal.

_Perhaps,_ Bellamy thinks, seeing the wild look in Octavia's eyes, _that isn't so far off._

Lincoln and Octavia hover like bookends on either side of Bellamy, a study in contrasts. Octavia stands coiled like a spring, ready to flee, whilst Lincoln is steady, still as a statue. Bellamy finds that he is reluctant to even breathe too loud, the silence in the room too fragile to risk disturbing.

"Octavia," Lincoln says again, and it is as gentle as an exhalation. "Please sit down. This is a difficult time for you, I know that, but please."

She breathes deeply, her hands clenched tightly by her sides. Octavia uses her hands as an alternative to speaking, Bellamy knows, and right now they read as anything but comfortable. Still, she inhales again, and when her breath gusts out she sinks back down on to the unwieldy hospital chair. Lincoln settles back down as well, relief plastered across his features, the discarded clipboard back in his hand.

Once he is secure in the knowledge that Octavia won't do anything rash, Bellamy allows himself to sink back into that now-familiar pool of worry that sits like a constant weight in the pit of his stomach. Octavia's explosive reaction to a seemingly innocuous question is alarming; but so is the fact that Bellamy found himself unable to remember the day he was shot. He has a blank spot in his memory that spans God knows how long - by Octavia's outburst, he has an awful instinct that he's lost years of his life.

Lincoln clears his throat, pulling Bellamy out of his thoughts. "I think," he says, "that I've got what I came for. You don't have to be here for this, you kn-"

This he directs to Octavia, and she tosses her head haughtily, shifting flawlessly back into the role of a self-confident, put-together young woman.

"Don't be stupid," she parries disdainfully, and her manicured hand reaches across the bedsheets and grips Bellamy's tightly. "He's my brother, of course I'm staying."

"Okay then," Lincoln replies, and he sounds slightly defeated. "Bellamy, this is going to be tough to hear, but there is always going to be help available for you."

Bellamy nods, his throat tight.

"What year is it?" Lincoln asks, and Bellamy's stomach sinks. If he's being asked this, surely something is definitely wrong.

"2013? It's February, 2013 - Octavia, the Super Bowl was two weeks ago, Miller came over, remember?"

Octavia's grip on his hand tightens until it's almost painful, and tears overflow from her eyes, spilling down her cheeks. "Oh, Bellamy," she gasps out, hiccuping back sobs, and seeing how quickly Octavia has regressed back into crying has the dread in his stomach thicken and burn.

"It's 2015, Bellamy," Lincoln states, biting the bullet.

"No, it's not," Bellamy volleys back, abruptly feeling slightly hysterical. "You're fucking with me, _'let's all play a joke on the guy in hospital, ha-ha-ha.'_ "

"You have Amnesia, Bellamy," Lincoln continues, talking on top of him and over-enunciating his words as if Bellamy has forgotten how to hear as well as remember things. "Retrograde Amnesia, if you want to be specific. It's a medical condition that typically manifests due to a traumatic brain injury, and prohibits the brain from accessing old memories. As of right now, I've only got a rough idea of how far back it stretches, but judging by the fact that you thought Octavia is a sophomore, I'd hazard a guess of a year and a half to two. I'm sorry for dumping it all on you like this, but sometimes it's best to face these things head-on."

Bellamy nods faintly, shell-shocked. It _is_ a lot to take in, Lincoln is right. Two years of his life, gone as easy as breathing.


	2. time's forever frozen still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day that Octavia brings the photograph is a good one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh god. i'm the worst person ever i'm so sorry for leaving this so long omfg. it was one of those chapters that's just _really hard_ to write if you know what i mean? the next one should come quicker :)

"Would it kill you to smile, brother dearest?"

"It might, actually," Bellamy replies sourly, watching Octavia as she takes folded pairs of sweatpants and t-shirts from his bag and refolds them, placing them in a drawer. Ordinarily, their roles would be reversed and Octavia would be the one reclining, laughingly proclaiming, _'do my bidding, slave,'_ but since he's been in the hospital she's refused to let him do anything remotely strenuous, crying injury and the threat of retribution from Doctor Wallace.

 _"God only knows what he'd do - drown me in hair grease, maybe?"_ She'd wondered, and Bellamy still can't look Wallace in the eye, two days later.

"What's wrong, then?" Octavia asks, her eyes softening as she sets aside the t-shirts on the bed and comes to sit beside him. Since Bellamy's diagnosis, she's been almost unnaturally nice to him, and though he appreciates the change of pace, part of him yearns for his snippy, take-no-shit sister to make a reappearance. The way she acts reminds him too much of the persona she adopted before no-one told him anything, too-sincere smiles gracing her features.

Bellamy sighs, shifting restlessly in bed. "Well, I've only got three days left in here, don't I? What do I do afterwards?"

Bellamy's been brooding over this for days, cooped up inside with the same rotation of visitors over and over. He doesn't know what his life outside the walls of Mount Weather is like, doesn't know where he lives, where he works, who he spends his time with.

Octavia scoffs in reply. "You'll come stay with me, idiot. I thought you were meant to be the academic in this family?"

He smiles wanly, her flippant remark just a reminder of what he's lost. "We don't still live together, then?"

"Oh, Bell," Octavia laughs, a smile lighting up her face, "Do you honestly think any self-respecting twenty-seven year old wants to live with his kid sister? I was cramping your style."

"Style, right. I'm not exactly 'hip,' Octavia, my degree is in Classics."

"Please, enough of the self-deprecation and dad jokes, Jasper is ba-" Octavia cuts herself off rapidly, and before Bellamy has a chance to ask who Jasper is, she changes the subject. "I want my cocky, shit-talking big brother back, please; I'm not really feeling this mopey version."

"That's easier said than done, O," Bellamy replies. The weight of his memories sits heavy on his shoulders, and though he knows Octavia tries to understand, the gap between them grows wider each day. The best way he can think to explain it is as if they no longer speak the same language, and when Octavia trails off, expecting him to finish her sentence, Bellamy's tongue lies heavy in his mouth, and his throat closes up. It's a strange feeling of disconnection, not knowing the proper way to talk to someone you've known their whole life.

"Still," Octavia says. "I don't like seeing you like this. Lincoln said that talking-"

"On, Lincoln said, did he?" Bellamy interjects. "You don't know what it's like, Octavia, okay? This fucking sucks, and if moping is what makes me feel better then just drop it."

Octavia glares, her eyes flashing menacingly. "Get off your high-fucking-horse, Bellamy. You aren't the only one suffering here. And before you start, I get that it's worse for you, so don't start with the martyr act because it's neither big nor clever."

"Christ," Bellamy snaps. "Calm the hell down, Octavia."

The anger builds inside him abruptly, and it's almost a relief to finally feel something other than worry, even if it's sour and boiling fury, causing his hands to clench in the bedsheets and making him grind his teeth together.

Knocking over the pile of carefully folded t-shirts, Octavia rockets off the bed, and she opens her mouth to shout before breathing in abruptly.

"God," she sighs, and deflates. "I'm sorry, Bell. It's just... I can't explain how this feels. You're my big brother, you know?"

"This is hardly fun and games for me, O."

"No, I know, Bellamy. I know this is awful for you. All our friends are so worried, but no one has been allowed to see you and it's all on me and-" She breaks off.

"Our friends?" Bellamy asks, his anger evaporating rapidly. He always finds it extraordinarily hard to stay mad at Octavia, the crap they've gone through together making their relationship too strong to be affected by silly arguments, and seeing the toll his being in hospital is taking on her makes him feel irrationally guilty, even though he knows he can't control amnesia.

"I didn't think you were allowed to tell me anything, they never are in films," Bellamy continues. Maybe basing his entire knowledge of his condition off of Hollywood movies is idiotic, but it's not like he has unlimited access to the internet or whatever. The doctors still won't even let him look at a television, in case the brightness of the screen aggravates his eyes.

"Well, like I was saying earlier, I spoke to Lincoln and he said it was probably okay for me to reintroduce you to things slowly; just as long as you aren't bombarded with information or anything. Oh, and he said that because you, relatively speaking, haven't forgot that much, it shouldn't have any negative effects."

"I mean, _I_ wouldn't call two years of my life 'not that much.'" Bellamy replies. "Did he say anything about the possibility of getting my memories back?"  
He tries not to sound hopeful as he asks, praying his emotions aren't written across his face.

"He said not to get our hopes up," Octavia frowns."But that this thing called Spontaneous Recovery can happen, which is I guess exactly what it sounds like. He also said that our priority right now should be your health, and I agree. You got shot, Bell, you can afford to take it easy."

Bellamy sits back, feeling appropriately chastised.

"But yeah," Octavia reiterates. "He said it wouldn't do you any harm to relearn the basics. In fact, I'm going to go see if I can find him, maybe he'll want to talk to you."

*

"Well, that cleared some things up," Bellamy says.

"I'm glad," Lincoln replies, gathering up assorted papers and standing to leave the cramped hospital room. "And if you have any other questions, Bellamy, please don't hesitate to ask."

"I'll walk you out," Octavia interjects, springing up from her seat, and the psychiatrist pauses to let her catch up. Bellamy turns his head to hide his smile in his shoulder, amused by his sister's thinly-veiled attempt to spend more time with Lincoln.

He's a little nonplussed by what he's been told, to be honest. Lincoln informed him of the basics, but to Bellamy it feels like he's looking at a picture of himself from years ago; logically, he knows what he's being told is true, but he finds it difficult to reconcile the facts with his image of himself.

Although a detective? That's pretty badass.

And he's beyond pleased that through it all, he and Miller have stayed friends. Nathan was one of the first people Bellamy had met since the death of his mother who didn't make him feel ridiculously inferior for daring to be a non-white kid from the wrong side of the tracks trying to make it as a cop.

In fact, he can remember his first day at the Police Academy so clearly, still in shock from the death of his mother and one of the youngest kids in the room, when a scruffy guy with a beanie pulled low down on his forehead ambled over and jokingly asked _"So what're you in for?"_

That had, as they say, been the beginning of a beautiful friendship. They had stuck together through the trials and tribulations of life as a police officer, and the news that they remain partners even as detectives is one of the best things Bellamy has learnt about his new life.

It's a small mercy, he thinks, that even one thing has remained constant.

*

The day that Octavia brings the photograph is a good one. It's the day before Bellamy is due to leave the hospital, and the nerves that sit like a dead weight in the pit of his stomach dissipate the instant his sister walks through the door, a wide grin on her face.

"What's got you in such a good mood?" He asks, the tension leaving his shoulders as Octavia throws herself into her chair and begins rooting around in her bag.

"Well," she begins, and emerges from her bag triumphantly with something clutched in her closed fist. "I was talking to Linco-"

"Talking, right," Bellamy smirks. The lingering discomfort brought on by Octavia's flirtation with the much-older Lincoln is easier to deal with if he pretends it doesn't phase him, and in any case, seeing his sister truly happy is worth it.

"Yeah, talking, like _normal_ people do?" Octavia sasses, rolling her eyes.

"You know, just because I think you're nineteen, doesn't mean you have to act like it," Bellamy says, hoping that Octavia will see the funny side and not look at him with devastating pity in her eyes.

She does, thankfully, choking back a laugh and leaning forward into him, balancing her forehead on his shoulder.

"At least the accident didn't take away your - awful, might I add - sense of humour."

"I try, I try," Bellamy grins, and the feeling of normalcy is so sweet that he feels his eyes well up against his will.

"Anyways," Octavia says, rolling her eyes. "Lincoln said that he thought a photo might be helpful for you - since we can't avoid our friends forever there isn't any point in pretending they don't exist? So I went and dug out a group photo from last summer; we all took a roadtrip to the beach."

"I didn't ever peg myself as the type of person to take a 'beach roadtrip,'" Bellamy says warily. "It sounds like a recipe for disaster if I'm honest."

"Oh my god!" Octavia crows, laughing joyfully. "That's literally the exact same thing you said last year, we only got you to come because Clar- _I_ bribed you."

Bellamy chooses not to comment on his sister's slip of the tongue. She's been doing that a lot lately, although she usually pretends like nothing has happened afterwards. "Bribed me with what?" he asks instead, tilting his head towards his sister.

Octavia flushes maroon, breaking eye contact with Bellamy to stare at her shoes. "Uh..." she stammers, her dark hair falling over her face. "History books?"

She sounds unsure, confirming Bellamy's thoughts: she completely made that up. He lets it slide regardless, not able to muster the energy for an inquisition. If it's made the normally unflappable Octavia blush, he's sure he doesn't want to hear it from his sister's mouth anyway.

"Anyway," he says, forcing a smile and pushing a wayward bit of his hair out of his face. "Beach trip?"

"Yeah!" Octavia sits up straighter, enthused. "We all drove down and stayed in this cabin thingy, and it was so hot it was unreal - we were the only two that didn't get sunburnt."

She unfolds the piece of paper scrunched in her hand with a flourish, and Bellamy realises that it's a picture of a group of people, blown up and printed out.

Octavia motions for him to slide along and hops up to sit beside him on the bed, crashing into him and then reeling back abruptly when she realises it's the side where he was shot. Bellamy waves his hand for her to carry on anyway, his only concession to the pain being to grind his back teeth together fiercely. 

Octavia's hands flutter around him helplessly, and he nods his head sharply. "It's fine, O. Keep going."

She bites her bottom lip hard, but continues regardless, smoothing out the photo in her lap and gently tracing the creases of the paper, caressing each individual face with the tip of her nail. The chipped, fluorescent pink nail polish decorating her bitten fingernails stands out sharply, especially against the rich background of the sea and the sky; each a piercing shade of blue.

"Okay," she begins, and Bellamy doesn't think he imagines the slight way that her voice quivers. "I'm going to start left to right I think. Names and a couple facts okay?"

"Yeah," Bellamy nods. He pauses. Leans forward, peering closer at the faded photo. "Wait, O. I know them."

He points to a pair of dark-haired boys with their arms around each other. Their hair colour is the only feature the two share; the first boy, on the end of the line, is shorter, Asian, with a kind smile and gentle looking hands. The other is taller and lanky with a goofy smile on his wide mouth, a pair of goggles perched on his head and his other arm wrapped around the waist of a unfamiliar girl with frizzy dark hair. Bellamy knows he's seen the two boys before, he just can't think _where_. He grimaces, searching his memory.

"Monty and Jasper?" Octavia asks, surprised. "Maybe they visited - I told them not to though, the idiots."

"Well _I_ wouldn't know," Bellamy grumbles indignantly. He reaches forward and plucks the photograph out of Octavia's grasp, bringing it closer to his face to properly study it. "They look so _familiar_."

Most of the occupants of the photograph do, if he's being honest, but Bellamy can't reconcile this flat snapshot with the vague imprints of personalities that float teasingly out of reach. There's a blond guy with a scruffy moustache and a cheeky grin looking out of the frame; and Bellamy swears he's seen him before.

Logically, of course he has - by Octavia's account, the people in this photograph are as good as Bellamy's family. But it feels different to that, like he's seen the blond recently, the same feeling that he has when he looks at Monty and Jasper. He scans the photo again, his gaze skidding over various faces: a girl with her dark hair up in a ponytail, oil streaked up and down her arms; a mean-looking guy with light eyes and a sarcastic smirk; Octavia, smiling vibrantly with her arm around Nathan Miller - still wearing his beanie where the rest of the group are in shorts and t-shirts.

"Right," Octavia says, pulling his arm down so that the photograph once again rests on Bellamy's lap and inching closer. "You don't recognise anybody else?"

She sounds so hopeful that it makes his heart hurt a little, and Bellamy shakes his head but looks back at the photo anyway. It's the quintessential group holiday picture, all ten of them lined up against or sitting perched on a driftwood fence, the sand and sea at their backs and the cloudless sky above them. There's even a battered orange camper van parked at the edge of the frame, and Bellamy has to choke back a laugh at how perfectly stereotypical it all is.

Octavia cracks her knuckles before she speaks again, and Bellamy cringes. She knows he hates the sound, but he thinks that she honestly just does it to mess with him. She tosses her head as well, the heavy weight of her hair acting like a pendulum and flicking the brown mass behind her back. A wayward braid catches Bellamy in the face and he hisses in pain, but smiles at the gasp of laughter that bubbles out of his sister, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

"Okay," she says. "I'll start with Monty, 'cause he's on the end and you recognised him." She moves her index finger to rest just below Monty's face, and taps the photo absent-mindedly. "He's the nicest person you'll ever meet, honestly; he's an angel. I met him like the first semester of junior year - there was a party, and he and Jasper are the resident pot suppliers."

"You are talking to a cop, O," Bellamy says wryly. Not that he minds, God knows that he got up to some shit when he was in college.

"Yeah, but you're cool with it," Octavia shrugs, seemingly unconcerned. "Miller's a cop too, and he's _dating_ Monty, so it's not like you have a leg to stand on."

"Miller, dating?" He asks, eyebrows raised. It's not like the guy he knows - although he supposes that his Miller and Octavia's Miller are no longer the same person.

Octavia smiles fondly. "Yeah, they've been dating nearly a year; moved in together and everything."

"Oh." Bellamy sits back and tries to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut. Miller is his best friend. In Bellamy's mind, they're both still young and foolish, stupid kids that acted like they were invincible. The revelation that Miller's carrying on an actual mature, committed, adult relationship is a somewhat foreign one; and Bellamy feels hideously guilty for realising he's _jealous_. Not of Miller, specifically; although he's sure Monty is a great guy, judging by Octavia's praise. No, Bellamy's envious of the fact that Miller has had the chance to have an actual life; that he hasn't lost everything in one fell swoop. Miller has a life and friends and a family, not this faded pantomime of an existence that Bellamy is forced to act in each day.

Octavia evidently doesn't register the change in his mood, because she's still smiling brightly when she moves on to Jasper. "Okay, Jasper. Where to begin? That's Maya next to him, by the way; his girlfriend. Jasper's... the best way I can think to describe him is like our resident little brother. He annoys the shit out of everyone, but we love him to bits - and he was one of the aforementioned pot suppliers too. And Maya is an absolute sweetheart, you two get on really well - she did a degree in Classics as well."

"Huh," Bellamy says. It's good to know that he has at least one close friend in the group that isn't Miller or Octavia.

"Yeah," Octavia continues, sliding her finger along to rest on the oil-streaked red tank top of a pretty girl with her dark hair tied in a complicated ponytail. "This is Raven; you'll either love her or hate her. Probably love her, although when you first met there was a little bit of friction."

She moves on before Bellamy can ask her to clarify, glossing past the next person in the photo with only a few words. It's the mean-looking guy that he noticed earlier, and he can't find it in himself to comment when all Octavia has to say is, "That's Murphy. He's an asshole."

The guy next to Murphy is the scruffy blond that Bellamy knows he recognises, but can't put a name to.

"This is Wick," Octavia says, and Bellamy nods in reply, relaxing back against the pillows propped up behind him. _Wick_ , that's it.

"He's Raven's boyfriend? Or maybe her co-worker, or her friend-with-benefits - she doesn't use labels. I don't know him very well, but you two get on. He's funny, I'll give him that."

Bellamy nods once again, pausing to let the sudden influx of information sink in. They aren't done yet, he knows, but he needs a second to firmly link names to faces to vague impressions of memories.

"You okay?" Octavia asks him, her brow creased in worry. "You look kinda ill."

"I'm fine," he grits out in reply. "S'wierd, is all. Like I know them, but I don't _know_ them?"  
  
"We're nearly done," his sister soothes, reaching out and patting his hand. "Or we can stop? I don't want to push you."  
  
Bellamy shakes his head. He can handle this; it's a photo. From what he can see there are only three or four people left to cover anyway, and then he can go back to lying quietly in a darkened room, or bothering the nurse into letting him get out of bed, anything to keep his mind off of the outside world. He can do this.  
  
"If you're sure," Octavia says doubtfully, but, regardless, proceeds to fold the paper so that Bellamy can see the further-away section of the photo more clearly.  
  
"I'll skip Miller and I, I guess," she continues, ghosting her finger over the face of her photo-self. She looks properly happy in the picture, Bellamy is happy to note - an expression that's been missing from her face far more often than not recently. In the photograph, Octavia is tanned and laughing, freckles (one of the few resemblances they share) scattered across the bridge of her nose and disappearing under the frames of her ridiculously large sunglasses.  
  
If Bellamy remembers right - and he hopes he does, given all that's going on - he was the one who bought her those sunglasses, as a not-so-rare treat just after she turned eighteen. It was hard, raising Octavia without their mother or another female figure around, and although Bellamy tried his hardest, he guesses that gifts of sunglasses and awkward attempts at the sex talk do not a great parental figure make.  
  
Still, he thinks his little sister has turned out alright.

Miller is next to be passed over, and Bellamy is unsurprised to find that his friend is hilariously inappropriately dressed for the season. Perennially cold, Miller consistently layers up in beanies, hoodies and jackets, never shrugging off more than one layer at a time; even at the beach, evidently.  
  
"You're absolutely, one hundred percent sure you don't recognise anybody else?" Octavia asks, and Bellamy can't mistake the the thinly-veiled desperation in her question for anything less.  
  
He scrubs a hand over his face, defeated. "No, O, I'm sorry. But apart from you and Miller? No-one."  
  
Octavia forces a bright smile and gestures towards the photograph. "Well, we're not done yet. Have a closer look."

"O," Bellamy starts to grumble, reaching over to grab the photo and bring it nearer to his eyes. "I told you, I don't recognise..."  
  
He trails off, his gaze transfixed by an occupant of the photo that he must have missed during his first looks. At least he knows why; the blonde girl stands half in his shadow, the fact that his arm is wrapped around her waist and his face tilted towards hers meaning that she nearly blends into the darker greys at the edges of the picture.  
  
The bright blonde hair makes her stick out, though, and Bellamy stares at the photo harder, drinking her in. Bright, bright blue eyes, the colour of the sky behind them and an incandescent smile greet him, although he can't clearly make out the finer details of her face.  
  
"Who's that?" Bellamy asks faintly, drawing the picture further away and jabbing a finger towards the blonde. "She looks more _real_ than the others."

Octavia angles the photo to see it better and gasps quietly. "That's Clarke," she says softly, as though she's unwilling to disturb the fragile air of the room.  
  
"Is she important?"  
  
"To the group?" Octavia asks. "Or to you?"  
  
"Me," Bellamy breathes, not tearing his eyes away from the faded photograph. "Is she important to me?"  
  
"More so than most," Octavia replies, and Bellamy doesn't even look up, doesn't see the bittersweet smile that crosses Octavia's features. "More so than most."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! come and visit me on [tumblr](http://wullgorski.tumblr.com/) \- i changed my url and am now @wullgorski :)) feel free to badger me to update - i evidently need reminding! :)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i'm tentatively planning 8 chapters and an epilogue :) kudos and comments mean a lot!
> 
> my [tumblr](http://wullgorski.tumblr.com/) :)


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